Unit name | Ancient Historical Writers |
---|---|
Unit code | CLAS10039 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | C/4 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Sandwell |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Classics & Ancient History |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will introduce students to some of the main writers of the Greek and Roman world who wrote what we now consider to be works of history and in so doing will reflect on our own methods of historical writing. Our word history comes from the Greek term historia, but what did ancient people think history writing was and how does this compare to what we think we are doing when we write about the history of the ancient world? How far are categories from modern historical theory, such as causation, change and the past, relevant to ancient historical writers? How far did those we now think of as historical writers think they were writing ‘a history’ or have other ways of thinking about the project in which they were engaged, and how does this help us reflect on what we do?
Successful students will be able to:
1 x 2hr lecture and 1 x 2hr workshop
Ronald Mellor, The Roman Historians (London: Taylor & Francis, 1999)
Christopher Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian (London: Routledge, 2000)
Luke Pitcher, Writing Ancient History: An Introduction (London and New York: I. B. Taurus, 2009)
Christine S. Kraus, David Levene, and W. Li, The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 1999)